


The Mystery of the Missing Lawnmower

by Think_of_a_Wonderful_Thought



Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: A fair few OCs, And they said retirement would be easy?, Good Omens meets Agatha Christie, Intrigue, It's all kicking off in rural Devon, M/M, crime caper
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-15
Updated: 2020-09-02
Packaged: 2021-03-04 04:49:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,023
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24737950
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Think_of_a_Wonderful_Thought/pseuds/Think_of_a_Wonderful_Thought
Summary: Aziraphale and Crowley had hoped that their retirement to a quiet little village in Devon would be a nice change of pace following their brief brush with Armageddon.All too soon, the serenity of their rural community is shattered by a truly vicious and harmful crime, the worst crime to hit the village in living memory: Mike’s lawnmower has been stolen.As Mike and Jeff struggle to hunt down the culprit and bring them to justice, Aziraphale finds himself in the midst of the nefarious machinations of the PTA and a conspiracy that goes right to the heart of the village itself.Crowley just wants to get to the pub quiz on time.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 5
Kudos: 35





	1. Deal

**Author's Note:**

  * For [LadyRaincloud](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyRaincloud/gifts).



> Thank you to the incredible LadyRaincloud for tolerating my relentless cracky headcanons and for having the patience and forbearance to beta this for me.   
> This has been in draft for a *very* long time, but I finally got round to posting.  
> If you need a hand with the Britishisms, please leave me a comment. There are a few. 
> 
> This work will not use footnotes because I tried and failed and got cross.   
> Hope you enjoy!

The doorbell rang on Saturday morning at half past eleven on the dot, right as Mike was about to bite into the cheese ploughman’s he’d picked up from Tesco as a special weekend treat. He didn’t get many moments to himself these days, what with work and the kids and the perpetual stream of repairs that he’d been required to do from the minute they’d swapped keys on the house. Saturday lunchtime, however, was sacred. Emma dragged the kids out to see their grandma, and Mike had an hour and a half of blessed silence to put his feet up, watch some telly, and enjoy a nice meal-deal without anyone complaining about his cholesterol levels. Saturday mornings were Mike’s, and God save the man, woman or beast who dared interrupt his.

He put the sandwich down with an angry huff, and stomped down the hall to the front door. They’d had that fancy frosted glass put in a few years back when they’d redone the porch, and so Mike couldn’t make out who was on the other side. He scowled ominously at the blurred silhouette that had dared to disturb him, before pasting on a bland smile. If number twenty-two had put him down as their “if we’re not in” delivery address again, he would have to be having words.

He opened the door.

“Sorry to bother you, Mike,” the man on the other side began, “but I’m in a bit of a pickle.”

It was Jeff, Mike’s sort-of best friend. They’d once been to see a Genesis cover band together in Exeter and could still talk to each other afterwards. Jeff could be forgiven for interrupting Saturday lunchtime.

“Alright, Jeff, how can I help you this morning?”

Jeff rubbed sheepishly at the back of his neck. He was wearing DIY clothes: a bedraggled and very faded Simpsons t-shirt, mud-caked knock-off Reebok trainers, and baggy jeans with deep green grass stains painting both his knees and most of his shins.

“Can I borrow your lawnmower?”

“What?” Mike was a bit surprised. Jeff had a lovely lawnmower- bought it brand new from that bloke on Facebook last week. He’d told Mike about it over drinks at the pub. Extensively.

“It’s knackered.”

Mike tried not to feel too smug. He’d warned Jeff about that Facebook stuff, after all. Can’t trust people these days, especially not on the internet.

“So you want to borrow mine?”

“Please?” Jeff replied, looking for all the world like he was going to cry if Mike said no. “Linda has the estate, and I don’t trust the fiat to make it the five miles to B&Q.”

Mike thought this over for a moment.

“Alright, mate. No worries. You can borrow mine, it’s in the shed. Pop round the side gate though, will you? Emma’ll kill me if you track mud on the carpet.”

Mike headed out the back door and met Jeff in the garden, taking a moment to rifle through the utility drawer, amongst old batteries and random wires, for the key to the shed.

“Alright,” he said, as he ducked under the wisteria (making a note that he’d need to trim it back again), and headed over to the shed. “Let’s just get this …”

He trailed off as he looked at the padlock, the key now dangling redundantly from the fingers of his right hand. The padlock, normally held shut by a winter’s worth of gathering rust, was hanging open, the door slightly ajar.

Someone had been in the shed.

With rising horror, Mike ripped open the door and peered into the gloomy confines. A dangling cobweb blocked his view and he swiped it aside with disgust, only to let out a sharp gasp of dismay. The kids’ bikes were there, as was his box of spare keys, the slip-n-slide from two years ago that Emma said caused too many fights to use again, as well as a selection of plant pots and garden tools that Mike had been using last weekend (the weather had finally warmed enough to be outdoors for longer than an hour). But no lawnmower.

“Fuck,” he said, stepping back and running a hand through his hair.

“What is it?” Jeff asked, peering in to the shed for himself.

“Some bugger’s nicked my mower.”

Jeff stepped back, aghast, and clapped a heavy hand on Mike’s shoulder.

“Fuck.” He agreed, as it did rather perfectly sum up the situation.

Of course, to understand the true extend of the shock felt by Mike and Jeff that Saturday morning, one must first know a little bit about why lawnmower larceny wasn’t quite the done thing in Upper Tawstow - or, as it is known more colloquially, Mike’s neck of the woods.

Upper Tawstow was a small village on the north bank of the river Taw, more or less equidistant between Westward Ho! and Barnstaple. It was not, as many tourists had falsely assumed over the years, remotely aligned with Tawstow village, with whom they shared both an exit on the A-road and a deep and abiding enmity. It was not a busy place; there was a Tesco Express and a petrol station at the crossroads in the village centre, next to the school and the church, but not much more of a high street to speak of. The pavements were mostly filled with pensioners during the weekdays, and with families of screaming children at the weekends.

There was a pub, of course; one of those little places that had been a quaint family-run place until a few years back, when it had been bought by a big chain who redecorated everything in an aubergine colour scheme, plastered “Curry Tuesdays” and “2 for 1 Build Your Own Burgers” over the stained cardboard menus, and painted the table numbers on spoons stuck in recesses next to the salt and pepper shakers. The library had disappeared a couple of years ago, and they’d never had a post office. The whole place was picturesque and old-fashioned and very little ever-happened there. In short, Upper Tawstow was the sort of place that people moved to in order to escape the fast pace of the city, and where their children escaped from a few years later.

The people were, for the most part, kind and neighbourly. Sunday service usually saw a good handful of people in the congregation, the teenagers lucky enough to get jobs in the town were usually well-mannered and polite, and most people kept very much to those most British of traditions of both Minding One’s Own Business and Knowing Everyone Else’s Business. It was the sort of place that had best wild-garden competitions and food from the local farm at the village fête; nine out of ten people kept bees.

As far as crime went, there were very few incidents. There’d been a black-market meat trade under the counter at the butcher’s during the war, a bicycle stolen in the mid-seventies by a local hippy who had become very, very lost on the way to Glastonbury, and a few years ago they’d even had a local delinquent paint a rude picture on the side of the phone box. The graffiti scoundrel who had shocked the town had been the last and the greatest of all of these local yobs. But the crime was a good few years ago now, and he’d since grown up, married a nice girl, had a couple of kids and settled down. His name was Mike. The rude picture had involved sheep.

Since then, the village had been safe and sound, pristine and unaffected by the rising discontent at large in the wider world. There’d been a bit of a stir about two years ago when those two men from London had bought the old cottage out past the riding school. They’d settled in quickly enough though, and pretty soon even the most blatant homophobes had stopped tutting quietly whenever they popped into the village for a pint of milk, especially as one of them had joined the parish council. Normality returned, and had stuck around for long enough since then that everything had settled into a routine. The church continued to raise money to fix the leaking roof, the WI continued to bicker about the date of the Easter Bonnet festival, and no one had any reason to even think twice about buying lawnmowers off men calling themselves “John Smith” on the internet.

Therefore when, on that sunny Saturday morning at just past eleven thirty-five, Mike and Jeff stumbled upon the missing lawnmower, they were utterly flabbergasted. Things like that just did not happen in Upper Tawstow.

“Who could have done something like this?” Mike asked for about the tenth time in the last five minutes.

He and Jeff had moved from the garden into the kitchen to recover from the shock. Mike had sat back down at the breakfast bar, gazing forlornly at his half-eaten sandwich, whilst Jeff had gone to put the kettle on. The mud traipsed through on the clean lino was noted by both, but quickly ignored. There were more important things to worry about.

“Here you go, mate” Jeff said, plonking two piping hot mugs of tea on the breakfast bar and sliding awkwardly onto the high stool next to Mike. “Get that down your neck.”

Mike took the drink and cradled it in his palms, staring at the steam that danced and twisted from the surface.

“Could Emma have taken it out?” Jeff asked, after a moment. “Maybe she didn’t put it back in the right place?”

“Emma?” Mike scoffed. “Don’t think she even knows the shed exists, mate.”

“Could it be the kids messing around?”

“The kids are too busy playing Fortnite to remember we have a bleeding garden.”

Mike sipped at his tea again. Emma and the kids would be back soon, he thought idly to himself. How was he meant to tell them that they’d been robbed? What would that kind of shock do to his family?

Jeff took a deep sip of his tea, burnt his mouth, and swore violently.

“Alright,” Jeff continued after a moment’s further profanity. “So let’s think this through. We know someone’s been in the shed, but the lock’s not broken. So they must have had the key, right?”

“Or they picked the lock,” Mike replied. He was certain, absolutely certain, that he’d locked the shed up last weekend. This was not an opportunistic crime. This was premeditated.

“Who would pick a lock to nick your lawnmower, mate?” Jeff replied.

Mike bristled. He had a perfectly nice lawnmower, thank you very much. Hadn’t been too bad when Jeff had come knocking for it, had it? Someone must’ve wanted it.

Besides, Mike was starting to realise, this was probably the most interesting thing that had happened in his life in over a decade. He’d been living off the remembered high of a can of spray paint and a phone box door for too long now. He would solve the mystery of his stolen mower, come hell or high water. He told this to Jeff.

“It’d be like that Poirot or whatever off the telly,” Jeff smiled, steadily warming up to the idea. “There must be someone round here who knows something, and the police will never bloody solve it. Won’t be interested in a little place like us.”

“Too right!” Mike agreed, sipping at his tea. Poirot: he liked that idea. He’d always fancied himself a bit of a detective, especially since he’d worked out who in the office had broken the microwave. He was wasted in timber sales, with skills like his.

“Okay then,” he decided. “We’ll sort this out together. I’ll start work on a list of suspects.”

The faint sound of the church bells ringing out noon filtered through the double glazing. Mike made his way over to the magnetic weekly planner stuck to his fridge and ripped off a few sheets of paper. As he began to painstakingly write out a list of the whole ten people in the town who knew - although didn’t necessarily care - about his lawnmower, an altogether different mystery had just revealed itself amongst the trestle tables of the parish council monthly meeting.

About half an hour earlier, around about the time Jeff had rung Mike’s doorbell, the latest session of the Upper Tawstow local and parish council had just begun to get tense. The meeting was, as usual, being held in the school hall (which doubled as the church hall, community centre and “in case of rain” venue for all local events). The council itself was an odd mix of people- a couple of members of the PTA, the local MP (when he could be bothered to attend), the vicar, and a few local personalities who cared for, and clashed about, the running of the village. They were a strange mix of people and, in even stranger circumstances, all of them had turned up to the meeting that very morning.

They were each perched on their own plastic chair, the rickety trestle tables they sat at grouped in a vague horseshoe shape, next to the old wooden stage. A battered upright piano stood to the side, just waiting patiently, like an old workhorse, for someone to bash out the opening chords to “All Things Bright and Beautiful”. Plastered on the walls around them were years’ worth of artwork, notices, and photos from school trips long since discontinued through lack of funding, or overzealous health and safety representatives. The blinds covering the large Victorian windows were half-shut to keep out the midday sun, casting stripes of soft shadow across the faces of everyone present.

The heavy scent of smoke filled the air, winding up from the cigarette perched between the fingers of the vicar- a man who had never quite got on board with the idea of the smoking ban and acted politely baffled whenever anyone dared to mention it to him. The smoke drifted across his face as he leant forwards on one elbow, idly watching the drama unfold before him.

It had been a few months since Florence Watkins-Jones had shown her face at a village meeting. There’d been a bit of a nasty fight between her and Mr Fell, the latest addition to the council, allegedly over the correct consistency of a Victoria Sponge. But ask anyone who’s anyone, and they’d tell you it was on account of Florence Watkins Jones being the kind of homophobe who doesn’t know when to keep her mouth shut. She’d gone to ground for a bit after their last tête-a-tête, but, like a bad penny, she’d been bound to turn up eventually.

This week she’d come to talk through the books, which the vicar never really paid much attention to. As long as what needed to get done got done, he didn’t care too much about the details. He’d all but zoned out for the rest of the meeting, when she’d been politely interrupted, halfway into her little speech, by a short cough from Mr Fell. She’d turned to him with murder in her eyes, and it was as if time had been suspended for a moment. The calm before the storm, the gasp of breath before a scream. The vicar couldn’t wait to see what was going to happen next. He took a deep drag on his cigarette, and tapped the ash into his coffee mug.

“Do you have a question, Mr Fell?” Florence Watkins-Jones asked. Her voice was all sharp vowels and over-enunciated consonants, as if they’d been cut short by her knife of a tongue before they left her mouth.

“Just a quick one,” said Mr Fell replied, giving her a benign smile. “And please, do call me Aziraphale.”

The vicar snorted to himself. He knew a thing or two about people, came with the job, after all, and what he knew about Mr Fell – Aziraphale – was that he might look all bright and smiley, blonder and chirpier than the bloody Avon lady, but he had grit behind him. He and his husband, a man who glared and all but hissed at the vicar every time they made eye contact, had moved into town a couple of years back, set themselves up in a quiet little place just out of town. They could’ve kept themselves to themselves, not rocked the boat or anything, but Mr Fell had slowly but surely crept his way into all the important parts of village life: he was on the parish council, the PTA and had made all the ladies on the WI fall in love with him - what with him being well-dressed, softly spoken and happy to cat or child sit at a moment’s notice. The vicar liked Aziraphale Fell, but he was wary of him; the man had put himself in a position of power in town, and he was going to make his move sooner or later, the vicar could feel it.

“Aziraphale, sorry,” Watkins-Jones replied, her smile as wide as her botox would allow and just as fixed. “What’s the question.”

“I just don’t feel comfortable with these numbers,” Mr Fell replied, “we can’t work from something so obviously wrong.”

“That’s why my suggestion is to take them _out_ the books,” Watkins-Jones replied icily.

There was a long moment of silence, smoke curled in front of the vicar’s face, as his lips curled into a grin. This was it; Fell was going to make his move.

“Out of the books,” Fell gasped. “But that’s wrong! We can’t do that, what would that be teaching our children?”

“No one would notice,” Watkins-Jones replied, with a voice like ice. “No one noticed when they were incorrect, why should anyone notice they’re missing .”

Mr Fell sat back in his chair, and looked around the room with an air of casual disdain. He crossed his legs and surveyed his opponent over the top of his steepled fingers.

“I’m sure,” he smiled, “and no doubt that’s why the past few years’ worth of SATs results have been so…exemplary.” Several faces around the room blanched. “Surely no one has forgotten that last year half of Year Six thought five times six was forty-two?”

A heavy silence fell on the room. The vicar surveyed the cigarette perched between his tar-stained fingers. Fell had a point. Last year’s SATs had been… well, they hadn’t been good. More than one parent had come his way complaining about the bad marks, and the even worse resources that had led to them. Fell was right; they needed to sort out the Maths books quickly, or things might get ugly this year.

“I agree,” the vicar said quietly, and the whole room snapped to him to give him their attention. He was a pillar of respect in the community, after all. “We’ve got to replace them,” he said, nodding to Fell. “We need a whole new set of Maths revision books.”

“But what about the cost?” Watkins-Jones asked, her eyes meeting his in silent alarm.

“You’ll find it,” he told her steadily, not breaking eye contact. He took a long drag on his cigarette and blew the smoke off to the side, almost hitting the face of the bemused and bored MP. “I’m sure you can move some things around.”

“But -” she said, eyes flickering over to Elizabeth, one of the PTA representatives.

“- There’s more than enough in the pot.” The vicar cut her off, sharply. Fell glanced between them, clocking the moment. He was too shrewd for his own good, that one. Something would need to be done about him soon, before he started poking his nose into places it didn’t belong. The vicar sat back and let the others pick back up on the next agenda point. He needed to think.

The meeting trailed on for another half an hour or so whilst they debated if they could still have “whack-a-rat” at the school fête, or if it was finally time to put that particular game to bed. When it finally wound up, the vicar caught Florence’s eye, jerking his head to ask her to remain behind, as the others helped break down the trestle tables. When the room was finally clear, he turned to her with a snarl.

“What do you think you were doing?” he growled. “You nearly gave us away!”

“I didn’t mean to,” she replied, a faint quiver to her voice. “I just - we don’t have the budget what with the tombola -”

“Shh!” He hissed. “We don’t talk about the tombola. What if someone were to overhear us, huh? Do you have any idea what would happen if anyone found out what we’d done?” He turned away and lit another cigarette, inhaling sharply and letting smoke billow out of his nostrils. “Just keep quiet and for God’s sake burn the receipt.”

“But we didn’t do anything wrong…” she simpered. “We were just… helping things along a bit. It was just a bottle of champagne…”

“I’m sure the rest of the village will see it that way,” the vicar sneered. “In fact, we should just go ahead and tell them that we’ve rigged the tombola at this year’s fête- that we’ve rigged it every year for the last five years. I’m sure everyone will see it our way, will understand the _necessity_.”

There was a long moment of silence.

“You’re right,” Watkins-Jones finally admitted, voice barely more than a whisper. “I’ll just take the cost of the books from the after school club pot… there’ll be some extra there.”

“Good,” replied the vicar. “Now let’s get going.” He closed the blinds, casting the room into darkness. “And don’t mention this to anyone, Florence. Don’t forget what’s at stake.” He turned and headed out through the main doors, Florence Watkins-Jones close on his heels. For a brief moment, his silhouette was framed in the bright afternoon light, as he ground the remains of his cigarette out onto the pavement outside, and then the door swung shut.

Neither the vicar nor his accomplice had noticed the portly figure of Mr Aziraphale Fell crouched behind the piano, one hand pressed over his mouth in abject horror, as the church bell began to chime noon.

Mike and Jeff, of course, were utterly oblivious to the truly momentous events that had just unfurled in the school hall. They had just begun to work on the list of potential suspects for the great lawnmower theft, and had no idea that the parish council were meeting that day, or indeed that they ever met at all. Equally oblivious to both the clergy conspiracy and the local larceny, was Mr Fell’s husband, one Anthony J. Crowley. He was a man who had taken to country living like a duck to the forecourt of a petrol station: with great discomfort and a lot of spilt diesel. He was currently sat on a bench on the village green, waiting for his husband’s meeting to finish and scowling at the church tower as the bell began to chime the awful bloody Westminster Quarters. He was a London man (well, demon) at heart, and this two-bit little village just did not compare to the thriving capital; the pathetic little clock tower was certainly no Big Ben. Not for the first time in the two years they’d been out in Devon, Crowley contemplated a bit of petty arson; surely Aziraphale wouldn’t mind if he set the church a little bit on fire, would he? After all, he’d let him stockpile all those cans of diesel … But no, Aziraphale was an angel still … technically … they didn’t go for burning down public buildings, well, not in the last couple of millennia anyway. Crowley would have to make do with gritting his teeth and waiting for his husband’s meeting to be over and done with before he lost the will to exist.

Crowley didn’t understand Aziraphale’s fascination with the petty politics of village life. Yes, Crowley was enjoying his retirement. Yes, he was more than glad that there hadn’t been any repercussions after the Apocalypse-that-wasn’t and the face-swap con that saved their bacon. Yes, he liked the fact that he didn’t have to spend every waking moment planning and plotting how best to justify his actions to Head Office just in case anyone started taking too deep an interest in what Hell had been up to on Earth of late. Yes, he liked the little cottage he and Aziraphale had bought with its chicken coop, vegetable patch and old-fashioned wood fire that made the stone surround nice and toasty and warm to bask on for hours afterward the flames had gone out. But Crowley wasn’t too keen on the humans. He’d made a few sort-of friends - people he could pass a bit of small talk with whilst Aziraphale was off making the world a better place, or whatever. But, generally, he found most of the people in the town dull and a little bit … beige. They didn’t offend him, but they didn’t make him excited about life either - not like the ones in London or the big cities did, the ones teeming with life and hope and ambition and creativity. Most of the people in Upper Tawstow merely existed, followed the same … beige … routine as the rest of their neighbours.

Amongst the precious few humans that Crowley had come to like were the local theatre group. The Upper Tawstow and Tawstow Village Amateur Dramatic Society (created from a forced merger a decade ago when both villages only had a single member each and they’d each run through their entire repertoire of soliloquys and one-man plays) was made up of six permanent members, and a seventh at Christmas. They put on a new performance every three months, ranging from Brecht to panto, but the quality was always consistently godawful. They tried, bless them, but they were just so shit.

Crowley thought they were hilarious.

He’d been roped in to do lights and music on the past couple of shows, so he’d got to know most of them quite well. The staging had improved the overall quality of the plays so much that they’d actually sold a few tickets, which Crowley thought was a miracle even without all the cheating he’d been doing to make things twinkle and go boom at the right times. Consequently, Crowley was all but worshipped in the north Devon am-dram community; Aziraphale was very proud of him.

So that was why, when one of his little group of theatrical followers walked past his bench that afternoon, hair dyed the colour of the rainbow and clothes looking like they’d come straight out of Camden Market, Crowley took notice.

“Hey,” he called out to the human, clicking his fingers as he tried to place the name. “How’s it going … kid?”

“Hi, Mr Crowley,” the teen called back, raising an awkward hand in greeting.

“Nice hair,” Crowley replied, only half-sarcastically.

“Thanks,” the kid replied, ducking his head to peer at his shoes. “Did it to piss off my dad.”

Now, rebellion: that was something Crowley understood. He might not have stuck two fingers up at the Almighty and taken a running jump out of heaven, like some of the demons he could name, but he’d been hanging out with the wrong crowd for a reason. One could only hear so many kumbayas before one felt the pressing need to claw the eyeballs out of one’s own head - or the vocal cords out of someone else’s.

“Oh yeah?” he asked, languidly stretching one arm out over the back of the bench, and tilting his head to the side. “Did it work?”

“Well, I’m back at mum’s this weekend,” he muttered to his shoes. “He said he didn’t want me under his roof, not looking like a …”

The last word was mumbled, but Crowley could infer with the best of them. He’d been renowned for it in Hell, what with being one of the few demons who possessed any kind of complex thought. So he knew all too well what word the boy’s dad had flung his way; it was something he and Aziraphale had heard a good few times in the past few years. Of course, the label didn’t exactly fit them, what with being genderless entities squashed into male-presenting forms, but that didn’t change the fact that to most humans, he and Zira looked like blokes. And were openly married. Yes, Crowley knew all too well what kind of crap this boy’s dad had flung his way.

“What a twat,” Crowley commented, eyes wide behind his glasses. “Seriously, what an actual … twat. Your dad said that to you?”

The boy nodded. He kept his nose pointed at his shoes. His shoulders were hunched up almost to his chin and Crowley felt his stomach lurch. Fuck, but he couldn’t just let this one go, could he? The boy looked far too much like little Warlock had, back when his dad missed another birthday, or his mom had drunk a few too many bottles of chardonnay and forgot she’d promised him a bedtime story. Crowley was going to have to interfere, wasn’t he? Honestly, he was too damn soppy for his own good sometimes. No wonder he’d been such a bad demon.

“Alright,” he sighed, rolling his eyes and scowling at himself. “Why don’t you come and sit down and we can plan exactly how to make the rest of your dad’s life miserable?”

The boy looked up, the hint of a smile twisting bravely at the edge of his lips.

“Aren’t you too nice for stuff like that?” the boy asked. “Mum always says you and your husband are always helping her out at the school.”

Crowley let a flicker of the smile he’d worn as Hell’s representative on Earth flicker over his features. He was the founder of original sin. He didn’t do _nice_. Nice, after all, was a four letter word.

“Oh, you have no idea …kid,” he drawled, gesturing extravagantly for the boy to sit alongside him, “Just exactly what I can do”. He’d get started on such a plan of revenge that the homophobic bastard wouldn’t know what hit him; he knew there was a good reason he’d stockpiled that diesel. Now, all he had to do was remember this kid’s name …

So as the bells finished chiming out on that fateful Saturday afternoon, the serpent of Eden plotted yet another downfall of man, the Angel of the Eastern Gate hid from a vicar, and two middle-aged men sat in a muddy kitchen, pondering the mystery of a missing lawnmower.

And someone, somewhere, in the far reaches of the universe, turned off the lights, pulled out a deck of cards, and began to deal. 


	2. Flop

After several cups of tea and a cheeky cider each, both Mike and Jeff were feeling incredibly optimistic about their chances of solving the greatest heist ever seen- well, this far west of Exmoor, at least. They had moved back out into the garden so that Mike could get out his e-cigarette (Emma refused to let him have it indoors) and have a smoke (Mike _had_ heard the term ‘vaping’ but thought it was some kind of dance).

The sun was blazing in the sky, and sweat was gathering uncomfortably at the back of Mike’s neck. Emma was due back any second with the kids, and he hadn’t cleaned up the mess on the kitchen floor or devised a way to break the heart wrenching news that the mower was missing. Still, he couldn’t help but feel a little bit optimistic; the air smelt pleasantly of the peppermint vapour his brother had gifted him for Christmas, and he and Jeff had pulled together a list of ten suspects. They had a lead, something to go on, and that made Mike feel a whole lot better about the afternoon’s events. The pint of Magners sloshing about in his stomach probably had a bit to do with it too.

Jeff stood in the shade of the patio heater (bought a good ten years ago and used once) and squinted gloomily at the sun; his nose was already beginning to burn.

“Alright,” he said, “let’s run this through again.”

“Okay,” Mike agreed easily, before slapping on his ‘serious investigation’ face, “There are ten people in this village who know I have a lawnmower-”

“-That you know of,” Jeff interjected quickly.

“Yes, okay,” Mike agreed. “That I know of.” Mike was still very much under the impression that this was premeditated. No doubt the thief already had a fence lined up, and that fence had a buyer, and that buyer already had an unsuspecting customer lined up to purchase the poor mower through some kind of dodgy Facebook ad. Mike glowered. Fucking internet. Fucking organised crime syndicates.

“So there’s me,” Jeff said, counting down on his fingers as he went. “But we can rule me out.”

“Of course,” Mike agreed, making a mental note _not_ to rule Jeff out just yet. You never knew, of course, just who could betray you when you least suspected it. Hadn’t Barnaby said on that episode of Midsomer last night that some criminals put themselves in the middle of investigations, that they got some kind of sick thrill out of seeing their victims suffer? That didn’t sound like Jeff, but you could never be certain with people. Jeff did drive a BMW, who knew what else he could be capable of?

“-and there’s Janet across the street.”

Mike shook his head.

“Rule her out,” he said immediately. “She has a gardener come round twice a week and she’s one of those that has some kind of complex about proper lawn height.”

“What, is she OCD or something?” Jeff asked, out of interest. His cousin had OCD and hadn’t left the house in three years. He’d done a fair bit of research on the subject, although sadly most of it entailed watching Hoarders. Jeff was not well-educated on matters of mental health.

“No,” Mike said. He took another long drag on his e-cigarette and exhaled heavily. “Just a snob. Point is- I don’t think she’d ever have anything touch her grass unless it was, like, approved by ten people at the Chelsea Flower Show and had a special feature done about it on the BBC.”

“Ah. Okay then,” Jeff shook himself. “So that takes us down to eight.”

Jeff, it should be noted, was quite happy to spin this conversation out for as long as he could. Yes, he was enjoying getting swept up with the excitement of solving the mystery, but the truth was that his wife was going to go ballistic at him that the garden was still way beyond overgrown. She’d warned him against buying stuff off Facebook, but he’d insisted he knew what he was doing. If he went home, there’d just be another argument. Also, there was a small voice of warning at the back of Jeff’s head reminding him that, what with all the nice weather, the kids would be wanting a barbeque. If he put off going home for long enough, it would be too late to get the coals hot enough to cook. It was perhaps Jeff’s deepest, darkest secret that, contrary to most men on the planet, he bloody hated to barbeque; give him a nice clean kitchen and an aga any day.

“Eight,” Mike confirmed, snapping Jeff out of his reverie. “Well, let’s leave Tim and Colin on the list.”

Jeff agreed. Both Tim and Colin had worked for North Devon District Council back before they’d retired. They both knew the village well; they’d have been able to get in and out quickly- would know where to stash the goods until the heat was off.

“Then there’s Andy,” Jeff commented with distaste, counting down to six on his fingers. Jeff was Andy’s next-door neighbour, and they were engaged in the kind of Cold War that would have put international intelligence agencies to shame. Andy kept letting his blossom tree overhang so that petals dropped all over Jeff’s back garden; Jeff put up bird feeders in _his_ oak tree so that the bastards would shit all over Andy’s new Audi. This had been going on for nearly three years and both refused to surrender.

Mike hummed. He wasn’t too concerned about Andy, himself; the man was mainly kept on the list to please Jeff. They both lived on the next street over from Mike, and he’d barely exchanged two words with Andy in as many years. But Jeff wanted him on the list, and he was helping Mike out, so…

“So the last five,” Mike began. “That’s Azira-”

There was a loud thud and the high-pitched screams that indicated Emma had come back with the kids, and that the kids were in the middle of an argument. Mike and Jeff shared a look of panic in which three things were clearly communicated. One- that Mike did not want to tell his wife that the mower was gone, or what he and Jeff were up to. Two- that Jeff did not want to get between Mike and his wife, or listen to the kids’ argument play out. And three- that it would be a very good idea to move their investigations over to the pub, so as to entirely eliminate the risk of One or Two cropping up in the immediate future.

Mike opened the back door.

“Hi love,” he shouted into the house. “Hope your mum was okay?” He didn’t wait to hear an answer, and barrelled straight on. “Just need to pop over to Jeff’s for a bit, I’ll be back by eight.”

“What?” Emma’s voice called from within, struggling to be heard over the increasingly indignant complaints of their youngest. “Alright, fine- no, let her have a go, Ted- I’ll see you late-no… _put that down this instant_!”

Mike slowly shut the back door, leaving his wife to mediate the growing argument between the kids. Now, ordinarily, he wouldn’t just up and leave her like that. He was the kind of bloke who took his responsibilities as a father very seriously, and he didn’t think it was fair to make Emma do all the work just because she was the mum. That had been the way his father thought and the way Mike had been raised, and he didn’t want to spread that kind of bullshit, outdated attitude to his kids. But, at the end of the day, there was a thief on the loose, and Mike had a responsibility to keep his family safe, too. It was time to get serious. In this gritty new world of shed-breakers and mower thieves, he needed time to think and to plan. He needed a base of operations untouched by the fond memories of children and home.

He and Jeff nipped round the side gate and off down the road, stopping only briefly at Jeff’s house to pick up some cash. It was entirely necessary, he reminded himself. The one place he could truly focus on work: the pub. There the true work could begin.

In a darkened room, somewhere far away, the first card of the flop is dealt. The dealer grins, and the deck shifts in their hands.

At exactly the same moment, still crouched in the darkened school hall of Upper Tawstow Primary School, the former Guardian of the Eastern Gate was in the midst of an ethical crisis. He knew he should probably get up and find his husband for good old-fashioned advice, but he wasn’t entirely sure it was safe to leave the hall yet. Especially if there might be a group of fiends waiting outside to assail him. He let out a shaky breath.

He still couldn’t believe what he’d heard. The vicar and the woman-who-wouldn’t-know-a-decent-sponge-cake-if-it-danced-a-fandango-in-the-middle-of-her-over-decorated-sitting-room were rigging the tombola! The tombola! The heart of the school fete, the crème-de-la-crème of all local fundraising events! For shame! But was it really Aziraphale’s place to interfere? He and Crowley had sworn to each other that they weren’t going to get _too_ mixed up in the lives of mortals. They were retired. They had a cottage with lots of comfortable armchairs and cosy nooks for reading old books. They didn’t need adventures or conspiracies or things that required one to leave the house more than twice in any given week.

By now, Aziraphale had been crouched down for a good twenty minutes, and his knees were really beginning to hurt him…his knees, and his back, and his left hip. There was no real reason for them to ache, of course, as he was still _technically_ an angel and thus immortal, but that didn’t stop the blasted things from screaming out in protest as he slowly heaved himself to his feet. He had to reach out to the piano for support and accidentally put most of his weight somewhere near the bottom A. He nearly jumped out of his skin as discordant bass notes rang out emphatically through the empty hall.

He held his breath for a few minutes more than would be entirely natural for anyone as non-celestial as he was pretending to be, and then he let out a deep sigh of relief. He hadn’t gathered any undue attention, and presumably there was no one lurking around outside to catch him off guard. How fortuitous! Now he just had to find Crowley- who would hopefully make him a nice cup of tea and pat his hand consolingly. There might even be pastries involved… if he played his cards right… and looked suitably distressed.

“Right,” he said briskly, pulling himself together. He limped out of the darkened hall, through the heavy double doors, and into the Saturday afternoon sun. It was, Aziraphale noted with a certain degree of pained nostalgia, remarkably similar to ascending into heaven after a lengthy period of time spent on Earth. So very bright. So very, very bright. His eyes watered.

A quick glance over to the bench on the village green revealed that Crowley was not, in fact, dutifully waiting for him. Hmm…odd. They had a _routine_ for every time Aziraphale had to attend one of his meetings and Crowley _always_ waited for his husband. Now all of a sudden he’s missing? That was…very…very…odd. Crowley wouldn’t just up and leave, would he? Perhaps he’d gone looking for Aziraphale? After all, he _had_ been in the hall much longer than expected, far after all the others had left. Maybe Crowley had assumed he’d gone home already? There was absolutely no reason to panic. Crowley was a _demon_ ; he could _stop time_ and _reconfigure reality_. There was absolutely no reason to worry about him falling into the hands of the vicar and Mrs “I don’t even bother weighing the eggs” Watkins-Jones.

Resolving to put the idea out of his mind, Aziraphale decided to take a quick stop at Tesco to pick up a few bits and pieces. He was going to make petits fours, he decided. Wouldn’t that be lovely? He and Crowley could share them for afternoon tea and they could pretend they were back at the Ritz. He was not, he reminded himself sternly, trying to distract himself from the faint tendril of worry at the back of his mind- the one stamping on his nice, calm feelings like an under-rehearsed cat attempting to tap-dance on the proverbial hot tin roof. He just liked cooking, and then eating the food that he’d cooked. There was something so very fun in turning things into other things, without miracling the end result. That was all. He was learning to be a pastry chef; Crowley was very proud.

He walked down the aisles, taking a moment to lament the reduced baking range now they were fully on their way into summer. They’d had two full bays of flour and sugar and whatnot back around Easter. He’d been able to fill the pantry with tubs of hundreds of thousands and shiny silver sugared balls (which he never actually used, but thought looked very pretty). He’d even been able to get his hands on some candied angelica _. Candied angelica_! Normally he’d have to head all the way into _Barnstaple_ for that! But now the sun had finally come out and decided to stick around for a bit, a whole metre of baking supplies had been given over to Pimms, plastic jugs and novelty ice-cube trays.

Aziraphale sniffed to demonstrate his displeasure, even as he picked up a little pack of avocado-themed cocktail umbrellas. Crowley was, after all, inordinately proud of his work starting that particular fad, and it was actually one Aziraphale approved of. It was certainly a healthier obsession than the gobstopper ever was, and far less likely to cause death by accidental inhalation.

The thought of Crowley made his stomach swoop, and for once not in a pleasant fluttery way. He swallowed heavily and swept the necessary ingredients for some light sandwiches and petits fours into his basket. He was not going to think about silly, unnecessary worries. He was going to do what the humans did and distract himself properly. Not that he needed to, of course, because there was _really nothing to worry about_.

A minute later, Aziraphale was wandering up and down the alcohol aisle (there were _several_ bays of that, of course) and contemplating whether or not he should pick up a little pick-me-up to accompany their tea. Some pastis as a little apéritif, or a nice Armagnac digestif, perhaps? But then again, there was a two-for-one offer on the New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc, and a chilled white wine might be lovely in the hot weather, mightn’t it? He scowled to himself, frustrated by his own indecision. In the end, he finally gave up and decided to pick up some prosecco. It would make their lovely, cultured afternoon tea into more of a boozy brunch, but it was cheap and it would make Crowley happy. He’d invented hipsters, after all. He forced himself not to think about his husband. He would be fine; Aziraphale just needed to finish shopping and get home quickly, because Crowley would be there and he would be perfectly alright.

Except, as he went to pick up a couple of bottles of the Brut, Aziraphale noticed something decidedly odd. A couple of shelves above the prosecco stood the champagne: a whole row of beautiful green bottles, each containing alcohol far superior to the stuff Crowley preferred to quaff. At the very end were three special bottles: the bottles that came in their own _boxes_. No one ever bought _those_ in Upper Tawstow; they were too fancy and needlessly expensive. Anyone posh enough to want proper champagne wasn’t picking up their groceries from the local Tesco, and the rest of the population tended to prefer cider over wine anyway. Even anniversaries or apologies were usually only christened with a bottle of Tesco’s Finest. So, all that being said… why was there an empty space between the familiar boxes of the Taittinger and the Dom Perignon? Who had bought the shop’s only bottle of Moët and Chandon...and why?

Something was decidedly odd, and it set off some kind of primal instinct at the back of Aziraphale’s mind. The kind of warning that came just before a sneeze, or when one was about to miss the start of Countdown on the telly. Whether the origin was celestial or mundane Aziraphale would likely never know. What he _did_ know, however, came to him in a flash of sudden clarity and the smell of burnt toast. In the blink of an eye, the faint sepia image of Florence Watkins-Jones was stood at his side, like the ghost of an old film superimposed on his reality. He saw her surreptitiously take the bottle down from the shelf and then sidle away to the checkout, her eyes flickering around her constantly. The whole vision lasted barely a couple of seconds, but it was soon gone. Aziraphale blinked to clear his vision, as a heavy weight of dread settled on his shoulders.

He was going to have to look into Watkins-Jones, wasn’t he? Oh bother… Now he _knew_ something was wrong with Crowley…

He took his purchases up to the check out and made pleasant, if slightly forced, conversation with the cashier. Young Stephanie, Elizabeth on the PTA’s daughter. She was in sixth-form and off to Birmingham to do dentistry soon. She was hoping to become an orthodontist. Her mother was very proud.

As she scanned the prosecco, she stopped for a brief second and looked at him with a raised eyebrow.

“Yes?” He asked kindly.

“Oh sorry,” she apologised, blushing. “I just didn’t think you’d be one for prosecco. Thought you’d be into the fancier stuff, Mr Fell.”

He laughed slightly, hoping it didn’t sound too strained.

“I am, usually,” he admitted, as she went back to the scanning. “Only my husband is very fond of prosecco.” He swallowed heavily, and tried to smile bravely. Perhaps a joke would help? “For better or for worse does also include taste in alcohol, unfortunately.”

Stephanie laughed politely.

“That’ll be thirty-four-ninety-five, please.”

He handed over two twenty pound notes, feeling a brief thrill (as he always did) at paying actual money, like the humans did.

“If you do want the posh stuff, we’ve got some coming in on Thursday,” she told him as she handed over his change.

“Oh?”

“We sold one bottle of the fancy champagne and now head office thinks there’s a growing local market, or something.” She looked up at him mournfully. “We’re going to have to build a whole _display_.”

“Oh dear,” Aziraphale said faintly.

“Chris, the manager, did try to tell them we’ll never shift it,” continued Stephanie, oblivious to her audience’s increasing desire to leave. “But would they listen? Not like they care that Mrs Watkins-Jones’s niece is turning eighteen and the Ocado delivery was missing the champagne. Even though that’s the only reason-”

“Oh,” Aziraphale said, his brain (rather rudely) ducking out of the conversation to treat him to a full five seconds of white noise. That just didn’t make sense. Emily Watkins-Jones was only _thirteen_ and her birthday had been a fortnight ago. Mrs Watkins-Jones’s sister had two boys, and her brother-in-law was only himself seventeen (Mr Watkins-Jones senior’s second marriage to a twenty-one year old art student was _quite_ the scandal at the time). Clearly, Aziraphale thought to himself, this was merely some convoluted cover story. Perhaps it might have gone over the head of a less discerning villager, but Aziraphale had put a _lot_ of effort into getting to know his neighbours, joining almost every club or society in a five mile radius that would have him and putting himself at the best place to tap into the rumour mill. Mrs Watkins-Jones didn’t want anyone knowing she’d bought champagne. But why?

“-you alright, Mr Fell?”

“Oh, sorry,” he blustered, feeling a terrible blush paint his cheeks. He really needed to get home. He hoped that Crowley was there to greet him. Crowley would know what to do; he had experience with conspiracies and such. Aziraphale just hoped that he hadn’t got his husband caught up in the wrong side of one…

He grabbed his shopping bags and flashed a brief smile at poor, bewildered Stephanie.

“Feeling rather faint,” Aziraphale said, as he walked backwards towards the door. “Must be low blood sugar. I’d better be off. Toodle-oo.”

He left the shop in a terrible hurry, determined to cover the two mile walk back home in under half an hour. His head was muddled with worry for Crowley and with confusion around the bottle of champagne, the tombola and the smoking vicar. He was so deep into his thoughts that he failed to notice the pair of eyes watching him very closely from just behind the bus stop.

The pair of eyes paused for a second, blinked slowly and then began to follow Mr Aziraphale Fell back home.

The dealer smiled. Two down, one to go.

Crowley blinked and paused mid-sentence. For a moment he had the strangest feeling. He couldn’t name it, couldn’t have placed it if you’d given him a decent GPS and a good five hours to work with. No, this feeling was something other, as if being touched by something _fated_ , perhaps even…ineffable. The last time he’d felt that way he’d been staring down Satan with the Antichrist at his side. It was _not_ a comfortable sensation.

“Oh fuck,” he said to himself, running a hand through his hair. Next to him, his multicoloured young friend started.

No, Crowley had yet to remember the boy’s name, although he was pretty certain it was vaguely Welsh. The bastard dad was from Cardiff, apparently.

“Are you alright, Mr Crowley?” 

“What? Yes, I’m fine,” Crowley muttered distractedly. “Just had the horrible realisation I’m probably _doing the right thing_ again.”

“And that’s a bad thing?” the boy asked, peering up through his strikingly violet fringe.

“Oh yes,” Crowley replied. “Usually leads to no amount of trouble.” He shook himself. “And it’s just Crowley, kid. No ‘Mr’. Anyway, where were we?”

“We’re…we’re in the car park, Mr…sorry…um…Crowley?”

They were, in fact, stood in the middle of the pub car park, staring down at Crowley’s phone, and keeping a careful eye on the Bluetooth connection. Had they been looking up at all, they might have seen Aziraphale storming past them, a dark figure following him a few metres behind. Were they at all paying attention to their surroundings, they might also have seen Mike and Jeff hurrying into the pub, talking between them in low whispers. But they weren’t, and so they didn’t.

This was not, however, what Crowley had meant when he’d asked his young partner-in-crime the question “where were we?”

“I meant where were we up to in the conversation,” Crowley clarified. He cast his eyes down to the ground for a long moment, as if seeking some kind of higher, or rather lower, message. He shook his head. “No, it’s gone. Can’t remember what I was about to say. Anyway, point is,” he continued, waving his phone in the air a bit. “Point _is…_ that with a little bit of hacking magic, I’m in your dad’s phone. We can start by sending out all sorts of compromising messages.” Crowley snickered to himself. “Now, how much do we hate him? Are we thinking Ashley Madison, or terrorist watch list?”

The boy stared at him.

“What?” Crowley asked, self-consciously pushing his glasses back up his nose in case they’d started to slide again. “What is it, kid?”

“I mean, I’m not a kid, I’m sixteen,” the kid began. “And just…you can do all that, through Bluetooth, from hundreds of miles away?”

Crowley shrugged.

“As I said, it’s hacking _magic_. Now spill, just what is the aim in all of this? Public humiliation or detention without parole? I can do either...” He trailed off as he read through the latest texts. Clearly ‘Evan’ was in deep trouble and would not be coming home until he’d apologised properly. Prick. Still at least Crowley now had a name. “What do you think, Evan?”

Evan didn’t reply. For a terrible moment, Crowley thought he’d got the wrong name. He double checked the phone. No, he was right. He waited; the boy stayed silent.

“What is it?” He asked, losing patience a little bit.

“I just…” Evan looked away, his cheeks flushing bright red. “I just want him to like me.”

The last part was said in a mumble too low for most ears to catch, but Crowley had a bit of demonic oomph to his senses, and he caught the words loud and clear.

“Ah, kid,” he rubbed at his jaw. “I can’t really help you with that.”

Evan looked down at his shoes once more, shoulders up to his chin.

“I know…”

“I don’t really do _liking_ things,” he explained, just to be clear. “Or people, actually. Bit of a miserable sod, me, to tell you the truth.”

“Forget I said anything,” Evan replied. “I didn’t mean…”

“No,” Crowley heaved a sign. “You did. And I don’t blame you, kid…” He looked up to the sky. “See one of the first things you need to know about being a person, is that all people are dicks…on some level at least.”

“Thanks.”

“No,” Crowley frowned in exasperation, looking back to the boy. “What I’m _trying_ to say is that most people are selfish and petty and don’t really have your best interests at heart. They’ll hurt you and put you down and make you think all sorts of rubbish about yourself and there isn’t much you can do about that.”

“…I don’t really know what to say to that.”

“No, sssee,” Crowley hissed slightly on that last word and took a deep, calming breath before continuing. “You see, most people are dicks and there’s fuck all you can do about that. Like your homophobic dick of a dad, for example. He doesn’t give a crap that he’s hurting you and you know what? Fuck him. He’s not worth it. See?”

Evan shrugged.

“Doesn’t change how I feel about it though. He’s still my dad.”

“No,” Crowley said with a sigh. “I guess it doesn’t.” He thought for a minute, fingers tapping aimlessly on the phone in his hand. “Okay. Think about it this way. Who _is_ worth your time?”

“What?”

“Well, not _everyone_ is a complete dick _all_ of the time. Some people are worth sticking around for.” His eyes drifted from the phone to the slim band of gold on his left hand. He smiled softly and then shook himself. “So…who’s yours? Your mum? A friend?” He paused as Evan blushed even brighter and glanced away quickly. “A _boyfriend_?”

“Maybe…” Evan’s cheeks were as bright as the red in his hair.

Crowley laughed in delight.

“Well, now we’re getting somewhere…” He glanced back down at his phone, typed something very quickly and then turned it off. He looked back to Evan. “Okay, right. Here’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to go and buy ourselves a tub of Ben and Jerry’s each. Then we’re going to sit back down on that bench and we are going to talk about all the good things in your life and not about your dick of a dad and his upcoming court appearance.”

“What?” Evan asked, as Crowley expertly steered him out of the carpark and back towards the centre of the village. “I don’t…I mean…ice cream? And-wait- what did you mean court appearance?”

“Don’t worry about it,” Crowley muttered, waving his hand dismissively. “The photos are too blurry to convict. Now, Cookie Dough or Half-Baked? Thoughts?”

Had Evan been listening to the little voice in the back of his head, and not to his very odd new mentor, he might have noticed that there was something a bit _off_ in the fact they’d been stood in a car park for ten minutes and no one had even come close to nearly knocking them over, or that no one had looked their way in almost as long. Had he been truly paying attention, then he might have put two and two together and realised there was something just a little bizarre going on in Upper Tawstow that afternoon. But he wasn’t, and so he didn’t.

Equally, if Crowley had stopped to listen to that strange little feeling, or Aziraphale had paused in the shop to question just _how_ he’d come to his moment of clarity, they too might have realised just what would unfold that afternoon, and questioned whether or not they wanted to follow the path laid out before them. But they hadn’t, and so they didn’t.

And if Mike and Jeff had just stopped for one moment to talk to Emma… Well, a mystery isn’t a mystery without a few ‘what ifs’.

The dealer placed the last card on the table. Three cards in a row, face up and completely blank. The flop was down.

The dealer smiled. Now the game could really begin.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed! Please let me know what you thought.   
> Also, Westward Ho! is a real place, and it has quite possibly the best name in the entire catalogue of quirky English place names.


End file.
